Category Archives: Adam Johnson

Fortune Smiles is a collection of 6 short stories by Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson. These stories are highly imaginative about things that aren’t usually written about. This is my first experience with general short fiction and I enjoyed it. The following are my ratings for each short story in the book:

Nirvana – 3/5 An interesting premise about a man that creates a program that allows users to interact with a deceased, assassinated President, and he uses that program to talk about his wife that has Guillian-Barre syndrome. His wife makes him promise that he will kill her if she asks him to. Good at certain parts.

Hurricane Anonymous – 2/5 A story set after Hurricane Katrina hit and a man must raise his newly acquired son after his mother dropped him off right before the storm. Visually the story was great but the plot just didn’t gel with me.

Interesting Facts – 2/5 The story of a wife with cancer and the after-effects of that illness on the family. Too sentimental and cliche.

George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine – 5/5 An ex-East Germany prison warden that locked people up for going against the U.S.S.R. The prison he worked at has become a memorial but he denies that anything bad ever happened to the inmates. My favorite story in this collection. I loved the subject matter, the history, the main character, and the theme. Just a fabulous short.

Dark Meadow – 4/5 A story about a pedophile that is trying to figure out if he is a good or bad man that never harmed a child, and helps the police catch others. Unsettling, disgusting, and one of the most challenging things I ever read. I wanted to stop reading it many times, and I probably should have, but I wanted an insight, to somehow understand. I came to more of an understanding but I was extremely uncomfortable while reading this.

Fortune Smiles – 4/5 Two men from North Korea are trying to cope with what life is outside North Korea in South Korea. Good story that was written well and I like that Johnson makes these men miss things about North Korea. I also liked how they thought how frivolous certain things were in South Korea.

Overall, I enjoyed this short story collection. I definitely want to read The Orphan Master’s Son now. Johnson is a good writer that isn’t afraid to go into subjects that are difficult and not talked about much. I only recommend this collection for adults.

3/5

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March Habits:
20 mins of exercise a day
1 hour of reading nonfiction a day
A day failed = $10 donated to the library
Successfully go the whole month = 1 new book buy.